Between Scylla and Charybdis
by The Carnivorous Muffin
Summary: Bella, a new student at the University of Washington, meets the strange, elusive, and beautiful Carlisle Cullen. However, as time moves forward, and past mistakes wear the faces of men and monsters. Bella must face the consequences of others' mistakes and Carlisle must make a choice for which there can be no happy ending.
1. Chapter 1

Bella was only nineteen, a freshman at the University of Washington, and yet when she'd first stepped foot on campus she felt so old. Bella had always felt a little older than she probably should, she liked to think that it was a side-effect of being Renee's daughter, but perhaps it was just some odd quirk of Bella's personality.

Like she was always wearing some younger person's skin, and yet, clumsy and awkward as she tried to navigate both socially and physically through environments that never really seemed to suit her.

Yet, every passing year she also felt, in some strange way, one year closer to death. Like if she closed her eyes she could feel the ticking of this clock, of time running out, pushing her forward at a pace that was far too fast and furious until one day she'd wake up dead.

She had no real reason to think this way, she knew it, as Charlie had reminded her after dropping her off on campus with a smile and a bear hug, Bella's life was just beginning. Renee, babbling and overemotional in the first five days of phone calls, had said more or less the same thing even if it took her ten times as long to say it.

So, like always, Bella liked to shove these sorts of philosophical thoughts into a box and cover it up with Jane Austen and Emily Bronte as well as the excitement of pursuing literature in a real academic sense (even if Charlie chided and reminded her that she should probably major in something that could get her some kind of job when she graduated).

Unfortunately, even at university, Bella Swan could not escape math.

Bella wouldn't say she was… the worst at math, in high school, especially in Forks' tiny high school with no AP courses to speak of, she'd been far from the worst in her class. That said, it was always something she'd struggled with and hadn't really liked. She'd been more than looking forward to leaving it behind, but unfortunately general requirements were general requirements, and she'd rather live her life in college without math hanging over her head like some dreaded guillotine.

The trouble was that this new math class was just a bit harder and faster paced than Forks' had been.

And this meant that rather than reading books and working on papers, Bella was trying to finish her math homework at hideous hours in the library. Standing there awkwardly in the doorway, biting her lip, she couldn't help but notice that once again every table in the place seemed to be occupied.

She shifted from foot to foot, looking over the stacks and stacks of books as well as the rows of tables. She could search in the back again for a seat, and she'd probably find one, but given that her apartment wasn't actually in Seattle (it'd seemed cheaper to commute via the truck rather than pay for campus housing) she mostly wanted to get started as quickly as possible so she could drive across the bridge at an hour that wasn't unreasonable.

Students, undergraduate and close to Bella's age as well as older graduate students, all bent over their computers, books, and papers with a focus that Bella envied right now. They cluttered and took up entire tables to themselves, looking anywhere but at Bella with invitation, making it all too clear that she wasn't going to be welcome at their table.

Once again, as in Forks and even Phoenix, she had that feeling that she was looking in at a tableau that she herself would never truly be a part of. In Phoenix she had been pale, shy, and awkward, in Forks she had been an outsider in this tiny town where everyone knew each other. Yet even here, standing in the doorway looking in, it was just the same, except what was her excuse this time?

"Pick a table, any table," Bella said to herself, shifting her backpack higher up onto her shoulders, eyes scanning the room as she slowly but surely wandered in.

The first, a dark-haired man with glasses maybe a few years older than her, looked far too intimidating. Rather, his stack of textbooks, three open at a time and highlighted like mad, looked far too intimidating for Bella's measly statistics homework to accompany them.

The next table, featuring a group of softly chattering girls bent over a pile of notebooks and open laptops was hardly better. Although there was a seat open at the table it had been covered with a bag, and everything about them screamed that Bella would not be welcome there.

God, maybe she should just study at her apartment. It'd be a pain to drive and then cook dinner and then get down to work, and she always found it hard to study at home, but at least there she was guaranteed a table to put things down on there.

Finally, with desperation, her eyes fell on one last table off to the side of the others, pressed up against the wall and almost unnoticeable. It too was occupied, but… He was intimidating, she'd hardly deny it. Staring at him across the room Bella could feel herself flushing without him even seeming to notice her, instead idly flipping through a book, fingers brushing each page with a care and attention that Bella rarely saw others employ to books. He was tall, blonde, on the thin side but even at a distance he seemed well built, probably a graduate student or else a senior, paler than her, but even with his face bent down over his book she could tell that he was the most handsome man she'd ever seen in her life.

And suddenly, looking at him, blushing bright red and feeling like a creepy fool, she wanted to run out the door and run and claim her spot at the other side of his table at the same time.

She flushed harder, her face hot enough to fry eggs, as she realized that he probably got that all the time. Bella normally wasn't about that, objectifying people and putting herself forward for nothing but a pretty face, but she knew plenty of people were. He probably had girls, and boys, lined up the door passing him notes with their number on it, offering to get him coffee, and asking him if he liked long moonlit walks down the beach.

If she did this she would be…

It might just be the most embarrassing thing she'd ever do in her life, because he'd shoot her down, she knew it. He'd look up at her (his eyes were probably a deep and brilliant blue), he'd blink at her, and then maybe politely and awkwardly smile and tell her that this seat was reserved for his girlfriend or that he wasn't interested in freshmen.

Even tripping in front of everyone in Biology class that first day in Forks or years of PE would not be nearly as embarrassing as this hypothetical moment.

Still, despite everything, there was something about him that seemed… open. No, that wasn't right, he seemed as if beneath the stiffness in his posture, his quiet intensity, in the serenity with which he flipped pages he wanted to be open. As if he too, was standing outside the great tableau, always looking in and resigned to look in yet always hoping beneath that…

Determined Bella marched over, hovered over the seat across from his. He looked up, brow furrowed, and his face did not disappoint. It could have been sculpted by a Renaissance artist, perhaps by Michelangelo himself, his skin itself was so pale it could be marble. His eyes though weren't blue, but instead a strange, faded, gold.

"I'm sorry," Bella said, flushing as he blinked at her, as if to make sure she was still there and not a trick of his imagination, "But there's nowhere else to sit, and I promise I'll be quiet and not distracting at all…"

She trailed off, realizing she hadn't gotten to her point yet, "Can I sit here, please?"

He stared, looking at her as if she was some kind of an alien, but then he blinked, and he was smiling politely, moving some of his books to make room for her, "Please."

Bella sighed with relief, practically sagging into her seat, "Thank you."

Then with a smile she began to take out her own supplies, her worn second-hand stats book that could hopefully be sold for a decent price after the quarter was done, and happily went on her way. She tried not to notice how he stared at her.

It wasn't… It wasn't like the way some of the boys at Forks had stared at her (when Bella had suddenly and awkwardly found out she was attractive to the opposite sex and a prime target for Tolo and Prom) there was no lust or desire inside of it. Instead there was a building curiosity, bafflement, and then something approaching awe as if every second that Bella sat here proved some unprovable point.

When she looked up though he was looking down again, tracing words in what looked like a medical text book, and so Bella committed herself to working on her homework.

Only about halfway through this she ended up sighing, wishing she'd had some sort of a brain capable of doing math. She'd have to go to office hours, or else bother a TA, because at this rate she'd be turning in a failing assignment and Bella hadn't come to college to fail math.

She then looked at her phone, nearly swearing as she realized the time, she stood and began to pack things into her bag. The man was looking at her again, this time with some bemusement along with his confusion.

Bella then, with one hand stuffed in her backpack and the other on her textbook, realized she'd never actually introduced herself, "Bella Swan, freshman English major."

He smiled, and it was warm and breathtaking, and even though he didn't reach across the table to take her hand Bella could imagine the warmth of it in hers, "Carlisle Cullen, first year medical student."

* * *

Carlisle Cullen seemed to live at the library, or at least, Bella and his schedules seemed to intersect there to an absurd degree since every time she was there he seemed to be there too. Granted, Bella didn't question it too much, was probably a bit more grateful than she should be that she could always count on Carlisle to have a seat open and ready for her.

She'd walk in, spot him flipping through some text book or else reading through any pile of novels, and then he'd give her that soft kind smile and she'd grin back as she made her way towards him, always at some table at the outer edge of the library.

She'd nod at him, he'd smile, she'd say hi, he'd say hello, and then they'd get down to business.

Except…

Except the other seat was always open. Bella supposed that was normal, a lot of people studied by themselves, Bella certainly did most of the time. Except, that thought she'd had over people clamoring to get Carlisle's attention seemed to be wrong. It seemed, instead, that people subtly and instinctively avoided him.

They turned their backs to him, never looked in his direction, edged away from his table. Sure, they looked sometimes and giggled, but they never… approached.

Bella herself had few people she'd call friends, if she had friends at all. There was Jake, but sometimes he felt more like an obnoxious little brother than a friend. Besides, things had become… strained between them, towards the end, when it'd become clear that he liked Bella in a way that she just didn't like him. Angela had always been nice, and Bella liked her, still talked to her even after high school, but there'd always been something of a polite wall between them. As for Jessica Stanley, Lauren, Mike and all the rest… Well, Bella would at best call them friends of convenience, and that was the generous phrasing.

Point being, Bella was intimately familiar with loneliness, or at least, social isolation and introversion. She never thought she'd see the day when someone had it worse than her, more, for someone who was not only the physical embodiment of perfection (like the god Apollo descended to Earth) but was also so very nice.

And he was, he was quiet, but he always waved at her, always smiled, and always seemed glad to see her even if he seemed confused that she would waste time on him. And sometimes she wanted to open her mouth, blurt out and ignore her homework, and say that she couldn't waste time on someone like him because he was clearly wasting time even letting her sit across from him.

Boys, men, like Carlisle Cullen did not waste time on Bella Swans. That wasn't the way the world worked.

Except she thought he didn't know that.

It was raining outside again, it was always raining in this state, and Carlisle had chosen a table next to a tall window. It was an unusual seat for him, normally he tended to pick tables in corners, far away from any hint of natural sunlight, but today seemed to be an exception. He'd brought out books like usual, but he'd spent the whole time Bella had been working quietly looking outside at the rain, his eyes filled with a wealth of untold thoughts.

His eyes…

They were darker today, almost black, and the shadows deeper. His eyes were always shifting, changing from gold to black and back again, and Bella thought they were strange but also thought they were beautiful.

Finally, after too many meetings of holding her tongue and letting her thoughts cower and fester in her head, she quietly asked, "Carlisle, you don't live in the library, do you?"

He blinked, looked over at her, puzzled and bemused, and so very tired looking beneath all of that, "Do I live in the library?"

"You always seem to be here when I get here," Bella said, "And you're always here when I leave…"

And she'd left late on occasion, far later than she should, and he hadn't even seemed to notice. He never needed to drink coffee, tea, or energy drinks to pull through the night and the studying like Bella sometimes did. No, sometimes watching him work, Bella would enviously think that the man was an energizer bunny, he could just keep going and going.

He smiled, laughed, looking amused and a tad embarrassed, "I hadn't realized that."

"Do you…" Bella trailed off, flushed, and told herself she was going to be cool about this, "We can't really talk in a library, and I feel like I just keep ending up sitting next to you and I know nothing about you, so do you want to go get dinner?"

He regarded for a moment, strangely serious, and for a moment he looked far older than her. Far older than anyone, as if he had been in this perfect carved form for centuries, and it was truly a god who looked out.

Bella was certain he'd say no, she could read it in his expression, and she braced herself for the denial, even though she knew the pain and embarrassment was already showing on her face. Then though, he softened ever so slightly, a concession, and asked, "How about tea?"

She laughed, relieved and overjoyed all at once, maybe more than she needed to be from a man she didn't even really know, "I can do tea."

They relocated to the campus center, again at a table near the window, Carlisle's eyes sliding to the glass every once in a while as he warmed his hands against his cup of tea. Bella stirred in sugar, watching him, and then finally asked, "So, where does Carlisle Cullen come from?"

He offered her a smile, a strange one, one that hinted on a smirk but had no real heart in it. He wasn't the kind of man, Bella thought, that could offer any kind of smile that even bordered on cruel, "Can I not remain a man of mystery?"

Bella laughed in turn and then said, "Well, I can go first if you're nervous. I'm Bella Swan, freshman English major, nineteen, originally from Phoenix but resident of Forks for the past four years or so, and…"

She trailed off, this was usually the part where she'd give some sort of fun fact, or a normal person would. Except there was nothing really special about Bella, she'd always struggled with this part, because what could she possibly say? She was clumsy but that wasn't necessarily something she wanted to be defined by even if it did seem to be her defining feature. No, Bella had always been… unextraordinary, brown-haired, brown-eyed, unnaturally pale, constantly out of sync with her own body, and introverted to a fault.

"And I like books," she finally finished lamely, the answer she always ended up giving. However, Carlisle didn't seem to realize how lame of an answer that truly was, in fact, her answer seemed to have just made him fonder.

"I'm Carlisle Cullen, first year medical student, twenty, and I am from too many places to even mention," then, smiling, he added, "And I also like books."

Bella's face reddened, Carlisle chuckling at the sight, and she wanted to die and melt into a puddle. Trying to distract herself and calm down and not think about his mild-mannered teasing she said, "That's not really an answer and you know it, you can at least tell me the highlights of places."

His smile faded, tightened, "It's… really not worth mentioning."

Bella, looking at him, then realized how fragile he seemed, how stiff and awkward. For whatever reason, sitting here with Bella seemed to be some kind of a risk for him, and not a light one at that. Like he was waiting for her to strike out at him, or him at her, or something to happen. He was tense without looking tense, a strange stiffness in his body posture, and if he was anyone else his knuckles would be white as he squeezed his cup. Except he was Carlisle, so his hands were relaxed, his dark eyes wide and open, and he smiled even when he wanted to do anything but.

So, Bella nodded, and let it go.

Then she thought back to his age and spluttered, "Wait a minute, twenty?! Don't tell me you were one of those child prodigies!"

He awkwardly grinned, apparently exactly one of those child prodigies who was in college by sixteen or seventeen. Although he was at least bashful enough to say, "Well, I may have finished my undergraduate degree in less than four years."

Bella pouted, then said, "You could have been helping me with my stats homework this whole time, couldn't you?"

"I did get a little further in the mathematics curriculum then basic statistics," Carlisle said, smile at ease again as he took in Bella's embarrassed pout, "But you looked like you wanted to solve it for yourself."

She just groaned, because he wasn't wrong, Bella didn't like to think she was too proud for help but being a big fish in Fork's small pond had not done her any favors. These days it took way too long for her to go to anyone for help.

Well, no, it'd always taken her too long to go to anyone for help. She wouldn't go blaming that on Forks.

Then sighing she looked at the time on her phone, "Well, it looks like it's that time of the day again."

Glancing outside it was still raining, would probably be raining well into the night, so Bella was just going to have to suck it up and deal. You'd think years now of living in Forks, the land of clouds, would have given her more tolerance but she still hated the wet and the cold with a passion.

If it hadn't been for instate tuition, she thought to herself, she'd have long since migrated south for the warmth, the sunshine, and the desert she still missed. Carlisle looked outside the window with her before looking back at her, that amused almost pleased smile on his face again, "You don't like the rain, do you?"

"I hate rain," Bella said with a familiar dry irritation at the thought of it, "It's cold, and wet, and it gets absolutely everywhere."

And if she was paraphrasing Star Wars prequel films, well, then, nobody had to know that. Apparently though, Carlisle had never heard the infamous "I hate sand" speech, because he again just looked sort of vaguely amused like Bella was this endearing little kitten.

Suddenly, Bella was feeling even more embarrassed as she realized that Carlisle was only a year older than her but looked at her like she was an adorable toddler.

"You picked a very poor choice of location then," Carlisle noted, "It will be months before the rain truly stops."

"Well, in state tuition," Bella said with a shrug even as she gathered her supplies, preparing herself for the deluge and the feeling of cold soaked clothing plastered to her skin.

"I used to feel much the same way," Carlisle said, standing with her, abandoning his barely touched tea on the table, "I was born in England and the sky so often was this same dreary gray…"

He looked almost longingly, reverently, out the window, eyes searching for something as he muttered, "But it's safest, on a day like this, and I know that when it's raining I can pretend that I'm…"

"That you're what?"

He blinked, as if only just remembering she was there with him, and weakly smiled at her, the motion not touching his eyes, "Home, that I'm in England."

That was a lie, it was something else, but it was a lie he desperately needed Bella to believe and not question. So, again, she nodded and started to walk away, out the store and towards the parking lot where her monstrous red truck waited for her.

To her surprise, as she stepped outside, Carlisle was stepping out with her, completely unconcerned by the weather. She hadn't thought he would, he'd looked like he'd wanted her to go except now he looked like he was afraid she would.

Staring at him in confusion he explained, "I can walk with you to your car."

Bella bit her lip, not quite sure how she felt about that, it would be nice to be cold, miserable, wet, and contemplating Carlisle without him around but company would be nice too. So, finally, she nodded and started quickly walking to spend as little time in the rain as possible.

Bella's allotted parking space, unfortunately, was nowhere close to the campus center and so halfway through Bella was as cold, wet, and miserable as she predicted. Carlisle however was anything but, though his blonde hair was now plastered to his skin, his clothes just as soaked as hers, there was an almost wild grin on his face as he took in the rain, the clouds, and the mountains in the distance.

And here, with his pale skin, his dark eyes, and his wild smile Bella thought that he looked so beautiful that he barely looked human at all.

It's almost a relief when they reach the truck. Except, as Bella gratefully steps in and waves to Carlisle, her beautiful, terrible, truck has finally decided to up and die on her.

"No, no, oh no, come on!" Bella said, not ready for this, not today, not when she's tired and wet and more than ready to go home.

"It's not starting?" Carlisle is suddenly standing next to the window, looking in, when Bella could have sworn he had just been standing feet away. All the same Bella mournfully shook her head.

"I don't have anything to start the battery either," Bella admitted, and it didn't look like anyone else was around to help her either. Well, anyone besides Carlisle whose car, if he even had one, probably wasn't in this parking lot.

She sighed, stepped out, then said with despair, "Looks like I'm calling triple A."

Giving Carlisle a pitiful look she said, "You can go now, if you want, I'm sure you have better things to do than sit with me waiting for whoever to show up."

She wished he didn't, she didn't want to sit here by herself waiting either for triple A or one of the few cars left in the lot's owners to return and help out, and he must have seen that because he just said, "I have time."

So, they sat inside of her truck, both staring forward at the gray rain, in a strange but comfortable silence. It was the kind of silence she'd never really achieved with Jake, even at the best of times, he always wanted to fill the quiet and she'd liked that about him but it could get demanding.

With Carlisle it was like she was sitting next to an old friend she'd never realized she'd been missing.

Except, apparently it wasn't the same for him, because when he broke the silence his voice was quiet and strained, "Bella, I… I feel like I should warn you that we can't be friends."

What was that supposed to mean? Did it mean that he didn't want to be friends? That he thought Bella was coming onto him and he had a girlfriend already? Or did it mean that there was something wrong with Bella and…

She nodded slowly, trying not to let the hurt show on her face, as she said, "Well, we sit next to each other at the library, I don't think that really makes us friends Carlisle."

"It's not you," he quickly assured, and there was a strange pain in his eyes as he took in Bella's attempt at blasé indifference, "It's… It's me."

"It's not you it's me? Really?" Bella asked, feeling her eyebrows raising and a churning anger growing in her stomach, because if he wanted to say it then he should just say it, "You don't have to…"

He spoke over her, voice oddly commanding, eyes dark and deep and again looking nothing like the eyes of a twenty-year-old should, "I am not what I seem."

Bella stopped, felt her anger fading and something colder and sadder taking its place as she looked at this man who seemed to be trying to tell Bella to run in the other direction from him, "What do you think I see?"

His smile seemed to cut at himself even as he looked at her, self-derisive and filled with pain, "There are reasons, Bella, that no one has ever chosen to sit at my table in the library. Why you've ignored all the signs, I don't know, but you have and… And I think that you should pay closer attention and listen to your instincts."

"My instincts?" Bella asked, she looked him up and down, and there was something strange and almost otherworldly about him. From the beginning he'd looked out of place in an ordinary library, but then Bella looked at him again, at his matted drying hair, his pale face, and those dark eyes that looked so helplessly across at her, and she could only say, "My instincts say that you're worth it, Carlisle, and that you can be friends with whoever you want to be."

He looked like he wanted to laugh or cry, he did neither though, just said, "You haven't seen much of the world then, Bella, because pleasant faces can often hide demons."

"Well, I did come from Forks, smallest rain-soaked town on the planet," Bella noted, then with determination held out her hand, "Here, give me your phone."

"My phone?" he asked, somewhat startled, but Bella just nodded.

"We're exchanging numbers, because that's what people do when they talk and are study buddies and maybe on the way to things like friendship," Bella said, even as carefully, so carefully, so that he didn't touch her skin Carlisle placed his phone in her hands, "That way you can call me if you're in any trouble or I can call you if I'm in any trouble."

She quickly programmed in her number, sent a message to herself, then did the same for her own phone.

Then, just like that, she passed his phone back to him with a wink and a grin, "See, study buddies, not friends."

His lips quirked upwards, but he seemed pleasantly resigned, more, there was a lighter hope in his eyes as he took the phone from her and put it back in his pocket, "I'm not sure study buddy is much better."

But it was, even as they sat in a now more comfortable silence, because Bella had never really had friends and she was fairly certain that Carlisle hadn't either. Study buddies though, study buddies had to be a safe route for both of them.

* * *

Bella had never liked parties. Granted, she'd only ever been to a few of them. Back when she was strange, new, and exciting outsider in Forks Bella had been the belle of a few balls. She found herself at dances and after parties with Jessica, Lauren, Mike, Tylor, and others standing in a corner by the chips and punch and feeling entirely out of place in these darkened rooms with the pulsing too loud music.

She'd made a point to avoid frat parties in general at college.

However, for all the friends Bella didn't have, when Angela came to visit from her own college Bella some way or another found herself in a dark pit of a room, standing next to the punch bowl as the loud music with the too loud bass thrummed with people shouting over each other to be heard, that is, if they weren't too busy draping over and sucking each other's tongues.

She didn't even know where Angela had gone anymore, Bella wasn't the only person she'd come to see Ben had met up with them earlier, and Bella had more than reassured her that Angela that it would be more than fine to sneak off and reconnect with Ben rather than be forced to have girl time with a lonely Bella.

Bella, often thought, that Hell would be something like a frat party. It wouldn't be fire and brimstone, it'd be sweat, loud erratic music that didn't even pretend to have a melody any more, the smell of cheap liquor and beer, bodies pressing together, wandering hands, and wandering eyes that would even glance over at Bella in her turtleneck sweater and jeans.

Absently she looked at her phone, thinking maybe it was time to text Angela and call it a night, say they'd meet together tomorrow for brunch with Ben or whoever she wanted. She spared another glance through the room, careful not to make too close eye-contact with anyone there, but Angela's hair was not in sight or else not easy to find.

She wished she had invited Carlisle, but since that meeting at the campus center, even though they still sat together in the library and talked she… She somehow knew that for all Bella didn't belong in places like this Carlisle belonged here even less.

"Who are you looking for and would you mind if I trade places with whoever it is?"

Bella jumped, started, turned to see a boy around her age, who was standing entirely too close. She took a step back, wheezing and grabbing at her heart as she took him in. He was… very pretty, almost Carlisle pretty but in a different way. He was as oddly pale as Carlisle, also wiry and tall with substantial circles beneath his eyes and sculpted features, but he had a younger look to him like he could still be in high school. His hair was comprised longer copper strands that stuck out boyishly from his head, glinting in the dim lights of the room and his smile was a smug knowing thing as if he knew every song that had ever been played and ever would be. His eyes though… They weren't like Carlisle's, they were a dark and dull burgundy color, like wine, and something about that fact seemed terribly important.

He looked at her, his smile disappearing and his brow furrowing, as if she'd just presented herself as some kind of a puzzle that he didn't know how to solve yet. All he said though was, in that same smooth and assured tone, "I didn't scare you, did I?"

Bella normally would have shook her head, perhaps should for politeness, but something about him put her on edge. On edge in the way that Carlisle seemed to constantly expect for himself to put her on edge. He seemed nice, and if someone like this had talked to her in high school she'd have been over the moon, but he was… So certain of her answer, so assured that he wanted her, and in that fact Bella couldn't help but wonder what it was exactly that he wanted.

So instead, with her own brows furrowing and irritation rising in her voice as she tried to speak above the music (something this stranger seemed to do infuriatingly well), "Actually, you kind of did."

"Sorry," he said, that devilish smile back, clearly not sorry at all. Then, holding a hand out to hers, he said, "Edward Mason."

His fingernails, she didn't know why she focused on them and not his long tapered pale fingers, but in the dim lighting his fingernails gleamed like polished moonstone. Slowly, hesitantly, she took it, and his hand was freezing.

Her own hand quickly retreated, her eyes glancing around the room desperately, seeing if anyone at all was looking at her. There were a few glances, but no stares, and suddenly Bella found that she wanted to be the center attention, she wanted everyone looking and watching and keeping this boy at a polite distance from her.

"Sorry, cold hands," Edward explained, still grinning that boyish grin, and then eyes lingering on her asked, "So, what brings a girl like you to a place like this?"

"Poor decisions," Bella said, not having the heart or will to lie, especially since lying had never gotten her anywhere good, the truth was always written on her face.

He laughed, impressed by her joke, and for a moment she thought she was just being paranoid. For a boy at a frat party Edward was being perfectly polite, far politer than many, and there was this rogue boyish charm about him that Bella did like.

His eyes though…

They were dark and filled with a strange hunger that was nothing like the hunger of a frat boy.

His head tilted, brow furrowed again, smile slanted to the side as he mused, "You're very hard to read, has anyone told you that?"

She blinked, flushed, and as the blood rose to her cheeks she imagined his eyes seemed to get darker, "No, actually, everyone has always said I'm something like an open book."

He laughed, a short derisive laugh, "Well, I'm a very astute reader of books, as it were, and you, my friend, are perfectly indecipherable."

"Oh, that can't be…" Bella started but he was motioning to the crowd, to shorter dark-haired boy on the dance floor.

"His name is Michael Peterson, he's a junior, and he wishes he was studying for his chem test but knows the frat demands he come here and at least attempt to get laid. However, he knows he's not nearly charming, athletic, or handsome enough to get lucky unless he finds some girl truly trashed."

Now, obviously this was some sort of party trick, Edward Mason was probably a part of this frat and thought it was funny to 'read' people like he was Sherlock Holmes or something. Still, aside from being petty and cruel and the dumbest pick-up tactic she had ever seen something in her stomach soured and fell through her like a stone, real fear blossomed inside her, even as she quietly said, "That's not funny."

Edward didn't seem to care, he pointed to the next, a girl this time, "This is Jane Black, who likes to believe herself the life of the party and is desperately looking for a good time. Right now she's eyeing me like a slab of meat, watching me motion towards her, and thinking, 'Oh, he is delicious, I can probably get him away from the prude in the sweater, she's entirely too virginal for his sort of fun."

Bella flushed harder, ignoring the way Edward smirked at her burning cheeks as if the delighted him, no, pushed his hunger closer to the surface.

"Seriously," Bella emphasized, "Edward, this isn't funny."

"And maybe I'll take her up on it, some other night, but not tonight. Tonight, is reserved for the books without words or pictures," Edward lightly, ever so lightly with that cold finger, tapped across her forehead, "Tonight, my pretty new friend, is for you."

Bella resisted the urge to take a step back, more than sure that this was what Edward wanted, that he wanted her scared and intimidated and perhaps intrigued, and asked stiffly, "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I have something of a gift, that I know everyone in this room, in any room, on an intimate level and here you are, Bella, and I don't know a thing."

Bella paled, her foot unwillingly sliding back, "How do you know my name?"

"So, it is Bella," Edward said, nodding to himself as if something had just been confirmed for him, "Bella Swan, freshman, English major, likes the library, came here with… Angela Weber though she of course is too busy with her long-distance boyfriend Ben to care at the moment."

Angela would never have given Edward the time of day, never would have told him anything about Bella, and Ben certainly wouldn't have either. Suddenly, Edward's party trick seemed far more menacing than any party trick had a right to.

At her discomfort, her rising fear, he smirked.

"Say, what do you say you and I step out of here for a bite to eat?" Edward asked, all smiles, hands in pockets, the eternal ruffled schoolboy.

"I'd say that I'd like for you to leave me alone now," Bella said quietly, while Edward's eyebrows raised, smile stretching.

"Oh, I have scared you, haven't I?" he asked, studying her face, head tilted as if listening to her heart hammering in her chest, "You don't need to be scared you know, I do try to keep innocent virgins outside of my diet, mostly. It plays hell with your conscious and you can never quite drown out the taste."

Bella wanted to vomit.

He leaned closer, reached out at a speed that was uncannily faced to twirl one of her dark locks between his pale fingers, fingernails still gleaming like stolen jewels, "You may smell divine, Bella Swan, like the finest of ambrosia that would tempt even the most pious of saints, but you are also a puzzle and I have found so few puzzles to occupy my time."

Stiffly, voice catching on every syllable, she asked, "Hasn't anyone ever told you that you're not funny?"

He laughed, and it was a beautiful and terrible laugh, because it had that same strange bell-like charm to it that Carlisle's had but none of its warmth, "The word you're looking for, Bella, is charming."

It was as if he and Carlisle Cullen were two sides of the same coin, made from the same strange material, and yet they couldn't be more different. At once Bella knew four things.

The first, if she left this room, with or without Edward Mason and his promise of late night dinner, she would die. They'd find her body in some alley downtown, mutilated and desecrated, and even Charlie with all his police work would never be able to find Edward.

The second, she could not stay here forever, and like Carlisle Cullen in the library Edward Mason she thought would have his same infinite and inhuman patience. People would leave, Bella would need to leave, and the moment that happened she would be gone.

The third, no one could help her, Edward looking at her, watching her face in amusement seemed to regard everyone else as little more than flies. He could hear every thought in her head and somehow she knew that not one of them, not even a call to the cops, would be a threat to him. Edward was talking to her now because it suited him to talk to her, because this was what Edward did for fun.

The last, the largest leap of faith and perhaps her only hope, if no one could help her then Carlisle Cullen, somehow Carlisle Cullen could.

She brought out her phone, ignoring Edward's raised eyebrows, shielding the screen from his eyes and furiously texted Carlisle's number, her first message to him. She sent him the address, the house name, and this message, "I know it's late, and I know you might not be on campus, but there's this guy here and he's really scaring me. I need you to come and pick me up."

"A message to your boyfriend?" Edward asked when she had finished.

"Study buddy," Bella said, her own lips twisting into a mockery of a smile, "We share a table at the library."

Edward laughed, a full throated hearty laugh, "Oh, Bella Swan, you really are a strange girl, aren't you?"

Dully, voice flat, mouth still twisted into the half-smile and half-grimace, Bella responded shortly, "I try."

They stood in silence, Bella counting down the seconds in her mind, waiting for her phone to buzz or ring or something and praying that Carlisle was coming. She started to sweat, a cold fearful sweat beneath Edward's gaze, heart pounding even as the room remained blissfully unaware of Bella's growing terror.

Carlisle was not her friend, not really, not hardly, but she prayed he would come all the same because he seemed like the kind to do that, for family, friends, and even strange girls who sat across from him in the library. She imagined him driving or running through the dark streets in the drizzle, up the steps of the frat house, and he'd look like he did when he'd walked with her to her card. A wild, ancient, thing that had fallen through the cracks of time to this modern age.

The light played off of Edward's skin and his red hair, reflecting off brightly as if his skin was made of tiny crystals, and in the spots of light that kissed his cheekbones and reflected off his eyes were not burgundy or maroon but instead a deep, dull, crimson shifting into something black.

"Bella," Bella turned, slumping with relief and smiling, because there out of place, golden and light and pristine in this den of sweat and hormones and terror was Carlisle Cullen. He looked across at her, smiling back, and then his eyes moved to Edward.

His face slackened, a dull horror and grief overtook them, a rising fear. Bella turned to look at Edward, saw recognition, anger, rage, betrayal, and then a twisted painful amusement.

"I see," was all Edward said, then, looking down at Bella, he smiled and dipped his head, "Some other time then, Bella, it seems I'll be making Jane's acquaintance after all."

And he sauntered, a smooth gliding motion that screamed of a lion stalking his prey, as he weaved his way into the dancing mob towards where Jane Black eagerly awaited him with glittering, sultry, and unaware eyes.

Carlisle moved towards her, hands shaking, grabbing her shoulders. Even through her sweater his hands were freezing, like Edward's had been freezing, "Bella, we need to go."

Bella turned to look at him in question, then back towards Edward, somehow knowing that Carlisle had silently traded Bella's life for Jane's. Carlisle said nothing though, but his face, oh his face was twisted in resigned despair as he shook his head.

We can't help her.

"Bella, come on, we have to go," he tugged on her arm, pulling her out of the house and onto the street where they slowly but surely walked to Bella's car in silence. Bella interrupting only to text out a short, simple, message to Angela that she had decided to go home.

And all Bella could see was Jane, this girl she didn't know, who Edward Mason could apparently read at a glance. And when they reached her big beautiful truck, the truck that had seen her through so much, she reached for Carlisle, pressing into the unnaturally hard contours of his body, and sobbed.

Carlisle stood there, perfectly silent, hand shaking as he stroked her hair and stared out into the street, his hands so very cold.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Edward really makes a much better villain than he does a romantic lead, that boy is creepy as hell. More details of the backstory of this story to come in the next chapter (as this will either be two or three parts). In the meantime, enjoy the beginning of this Carlisle/Bella and creepy Edward angst fest brought to you by a promised story involving Carlisle, Bella, and Edward as a creepy deer vampire.**

 **Thanks for reading, reviews are greatly appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight**


	2. Chapter 2

The week passed, as winter approached the rain got harder and colder, and Bella found herself waking in terror from nightmares of the might have beens and could have beens and probably weres. She didn't know Jane, didn't know where to look for a girl who went missing, but all the same she wondered in fear and in terror.

Some part of her was certain that she had traded Jane's life for hers.

And yet here she and Carlisle were, studying in the library like always, as if none of it had happened. Bella's hand, as she drank tea, shook ever so slightly, Carlisle pretended not to notice.

As he pretended not to notice, Bella pretended that she hadn't noticed more than she'd wanted to. Edward could read minds, he'd all but flaunted it, Edward had skin paler than hers and sculpted to perfection, Edward was a killer, and Edward was not human.

Carlisle looked so very similar, Carlisle had known Edward and feared him, Edward had known Carlisle and resented him.

Carlisle, she had become convinced, wasn't human either.

It wasn't shocking, maybe she'd already known, maybe everyone had already known but all the same that certain thought pounded inside her head every second of every day. Edward Mason is not human, Carlisle Cullen is not human, and they are both something dangerous.

In every shadow she saw Edward, always out of the corner of her eye, copper hair gleaming in the light, eyes burning and crimson as he grinned or smirked across at her from the dark. He'd put a finger to his lips, mocking, telling her to keep quiet or else come hither.

"Bella," Carlisle's hand reached out towards hers, catching her shaking fingers, and they were just as cold as always.

Bella started, with alarm and regret Carlisle pulled back, "Sorry."

"No, it's…" Bella stopped, shook her head, "It's fine, I'm fine."

She wasn't fine, and judging by Carlisle's expression, it, the situation, whatever this was, wasn't fine either. Libraries and studying wouldn't bury it away out of sight and mind, she wasn't safe here, they both knew it.

"Who…" Bella stopped, closed her eyes and breathed out, seeing Edward's face in her head, "Who is he, Carlisle?"

Carlisle's face shuttered, closed off, as if she had touched something more precious and far deeper than hometowns that didn't exist, England, or coffee dates and friendship.

However, whatever edge Carlisle had wanted to keep her safely perched upon, Bella had unwittingly crossed it already, or Edward had crossed it for her, and so shuddering and closing his own eyes Carlisle said, "He is… the closest thing I have ever had to a brother."

Then, with that wry and self-deprecating smile, "We're no longer close and he's… He's very dangerous, Bella."

Carlisle said nothing after that, but when Bella stood to leave and pack her things, his eyes trailed after her, wide and gold and filled with regret and a terrible nauseating fear both of her and for her.

It shouldn't have surprised her, that stepping out of the building, she immediately saw Edward lounging at its entrance against a pillar, his eyes a bright and glowing crimson.

"And he won't even walk you to your car, for shame, Carlisle," Edward said, hands in pockets, looking Bella over, eyes raking up and down, "It's almost as if he wants you to conveniently disappear outside of his watch."

"Edward," Bella said, stiffly, politely, and at her tone Edward just laughed.

"Oh, precious Bella, you are ever delightful," he walked up to her, slinging an arm around her shoulder, cold and far heavier than a human arm should be, "Now, now, don't take this the wrong way but please don't go texting for help like a good little girl from your study buddy Carl. That sort of solution only works the one time and gets dull and repetitive at even the second."

There was no chance of that, with his arm around her shoulder, Bella was more than certain that he'd simply destroy her phone if she tried it. And right now, that phone was the only way Bella had to contact Carlisle, when she got back to her apartment, if she got back, she'd have to memorize his number.

As they walked down the street, Edward shepherding her and setting the pace, Bella felt her heart rattling in her chest once again and cold sweat intermixing with the drizzle of rain. The sun, setting now, was turning the clouds scarlet, pink, and purple as it dipped below the horizon. Edward looked at it wistfully, almost with longing.

Looking down at her he then noted, his voice soft and full of wonder, "Twilight is the safest time for us, has Carlisle told you that?"

No, but then, Carlisle rarely said anything at all. Still, quietly Bella said, "He said he likes the rain."

Edward grinned, a jagged dark thing, and his eyes when they met hers were still filled with hunger, "Oh Carlisle Cullen, that would be the answer he'd give, wouldn't it? Has he told you much of anything, Bella? I'm sure he hasn't. Then again, you seem the perceptive sort, and you've lingered around him longer than you should. It amazes him, you know. You remind him of the rose gardens in England, beautiful and blossoming when you have every right to wither on the vine in such a sunless place. Like light, soft and illuminating in all the right places…"

Bella said nothing, there was nothing to say, only that horrible pounding fear as they walked closer and closer to the parking lot with her truck. And anyone passing them by would never notice, because Edward was boyish and beautiful, a boy on the cusp of being a man and Bella was plain and dark and would be lucky to have caught the attention of someone like him.

Lucky, as if Bella Swan had ever once in her life been lucky.

"That terrifies him, the last thing Carlisle wants is to be… illuminated," Edward said, as if this in itself was some kind of cruel joke.

"Listen I don't…"

"Know why he puts up with you? Why he lets you linger in the periphery of his strange silent world?" Edward asked, finishing her thoughts for her with a teasing fond note in his voice, "Oh, I know the answer to that, he all but shouts it every time he sees you and every time he doesn't. The poor fool, I think, may be in love. And with my shadow lingering over you, as well as his own memories, he's rightfully terrified. No, you have made yourself special in any and every way that counts, my friend."

He then stopped abruptly, in the middle of the sidewalk, the streetlights flickering on one by one as he took her chin into his fingers, gently, softly, and tilted it upwards. His fingers were colder than ice, so cold that they burned, "What would it take, Bella Swan, to truly tempt a saint? Is it the swan song of your blood? Is it your eyes, so dark and filled with light? Is it your smile? Or is it the ineffable grace where you can smile at monsters clothed as men?"

Finally, with his fingers on her chin, his eyes crinkling and glowing stoplight red in the dark, Bella asked, "Are you going to kill me?"

His lips twisted into a smirk, "That, Bella, depends on Carlisle Cullen."

He wanted her to ask, she didn't want to ask, but she had to ask regardless, "What do you mean?"

"Carlisle, many years ago now, once made a choice that he deeply regrets. Since then, he's learned his lesson of looking but not touching. You, though, you're different. He has no excuse of Spanish influenza and certain death, but oh he wants you. His heart aches, Bella, for your companionship if not your body," raised, wiggling, eyebrows and a sensual grin, "He truly is a sickening romantic at heart, our Carl."

Edward then stepped back, framing her with his hands as if lining her up for a photograph, "I want him to be forced to make that same choice once again, to feel his own agony and hypocrisy crush down upon him, to recognize that simply because he is an unreasonably good, kind, man whom the saints themselves might envy, he is capable of horrors beyond imagination. That I, a blood sucking demon, am made from his image."

Then, shoving his hands into his pockets, Edward's smile was all charm once again, "It's all personal, Bella, though nothing against you in particular."

Bella shook, shivering in the cold, even as Edward's eyes raked across her, hot, heavy, and filled with longing and desire, "It's a pity I have to use you to make this point, because you are so beautiful, so delectable, when you shake like that… Oh, would that I had the weakness to take you and break you now, your blood for my wine and bone marrow for my butter. But I hate Carlisle far more than I want you, and I can be patient."

Edward turned then, hand raised in a wave over his head, and said, "Tell him that he has a week to decide, and remind him, Bella, that he's never been particularly good at hide and seek."

Shaking, Bella got into her car, turned it on, and slowly but surely began to drive home. Her hands as they gripped the steering wheel were too tight, the radio sounding tinny and distant, like something from some other world. Her breathing was shallow and heavy, her legs pounding with blood from her heart, and they all but raced her up the stairs to her apartment as she flew on adrenaline.

She could smell it before she opened the door.

Bella had always been able to smell blood, the tiniest scratch, and she could smell the copper, burning, tang in the air and feel the bile rising in her throat. Whatever was on the other side of her door was not a papercut.

Bella's eyes widened, her throat burned, and she doubled over, willing herself to stay upright and not be sick on her own doorstep. Then, eyes squeezed shut, knowing she didn't want to see and couldn't see but had to see anyway, she put her key into the door, turned it, and opened it.

And oh, oh, all she could say as she opened it was, "Oh Jane, that's where you went."

* * *

The police were quick, at least, as was Carlisle when she tearfully called him. They came and asked too many questions which Bella answered as honestly as she dared, she'd seen the girl once at a party, she thought her name might be Jane, she'd never seen her before and hadn't seen her since until she'd opened the door to her own apartment.

She thought it might have been a boy, Edward Mason, tall with red hair and dark eyes. He'd talked to Bella, scared her and enjoyed it, then he'd gone off and talked to Jane while Bella had left the party.

Carlisle's hands tightened on her shoulders, in warning, as she described Edward to them but somehow, they both knew that they wouldn't find him. And that even if they could find him…

The night ended with Bella making reassuring, murmured phone calls to Charlie as well as Renee from Carlisle's apartment back in Seattle. Soft lies that did nothing to soothe the panic of either or Bella's own panic and horror as her eyes wandered Carlisle's warm home for desperate reassurance.

It was a nice place, thick books everywhere, medical textbooks and novels alike. All of them old and bound in leather, overtaking the bookshelves and spreading to flood onto every available table and even on the corner of the carpet. Artwork, old, English, hung from the walls, and in the corner, propped up against a wall at an odd angle, was an old wooden crucifix that looked more at home in a cathedral than this small apartment.

Carlisle stood in the kitchen, at a distance that was polite, but likely not out of earshot while Bella tried not to think about what she'd seen. Finally, when the call with Renee ended, in tears and promised reassurances, Bella said quietly to Carlisle, "He said… he said you have a week to decide if I live or die."

And that, that seemed to mean something very specific to Carlisle, more than it had meant to Bella. He slouched forward, shoulders hunching, face twisted and furrowed with terror and grief.

Bella sat down at the table, placing her phone in front of her, staring at it and contemplating death. There had been a few close calls in her life already. Once, when she'd just moved to Forks, it had snowed and there had been ice in the parking lot. Tylor had hit the gas a little too hard and hit the front of Bella's truck. Two seconds later, and Bella herself could have been standing there, right where his car would have hit…

Later, after that, that same school year she'd been in Port Angeles with Jessica and Angela and a group of men had started following her down the street. She'd eventually walked into a building, some shop, and refused to leave until they gave up and dispersed, the shop owner a nice old woman who patted Bella on the shoulder and asked if she needed to call the police. Later, Bella found out, the man who had been the unquestioned leader of the group was a serial rapist and killer who had likely planned on Bella being his next victim.

Point being, her life had flashed before her eyes more than once now, and yet… A week, a single week, for her to live or die. Suddenly, nineteen was unbearably young. And yet, closing her eyes, picturing the after, she did not think she was afraid to die.

The chair across from her scraped against the floor, groaning, and Carlisle sat down in it, "Bella, I am, you have no idea how sorry I am. For all of this, any of this."

She shook her head, tears gathering in her eyes, hitching in her throat, and asked, "Why are you sorry? You… If you hadn't come the other night, I know he would have… I would have been Jane."

Jane spread out and dismembered across Bella's apartment like she'd been a dog's chew toy. Had Edward kept her alive for a week, long enough to find Bella's apartment and tear her open inside of it, or had he carted her dead body in and then thrown her limbs from one corner of the room to the other?

Carlisle grimaced, then smiled, but it was old and deep and filled with pain, "Edward is my fault, my responsibility in every way that matters."

He paused, eyes looking as if they were on the verge of tears, and yet none fell, and Bella wondered if Carlisle was even capable of crying anymore. Perhaps tears, she thought, were a human thing.

"Bella I'm… I'm not human."

"I know," Bella said, nodding, at Carlisle's stunned look she said, "Edward wasn't subtle, and… And you never seemed entirely human."

He nodded, seeming to accept that easily enough, this quiet charade that both she and Carlisle had so easily agreed to in the library. Bella missed that, missed it even though it hadn't even been a day since she'd had it, a week since Edward. They would never have the library again.

When Carlisle spoke again his voice was strained, raw, as if he'd been shouting, "I am a monster, I am the monster who turned Edward Mason, a good innocent boy who had once had human hopes and human dreams, into a monster. I am… I am what you'd call a vampire."

"A vampire?" Bella asked, finding that word oddly funny, like it didn't and couldn't belong in this conversation, but Carlisle nodded.

"Many of the myths, the weaknesses, aren't true. I can own a crucifix, I can walk in sunlight, I have no aversion to garlic, silver, or holy water but… But we do drink blood, crave it like a drug for which we will never truly have enough," he paused, eyes searching the room, before settling on her once again, softening on her hair and her eyes.

She wondered what he saw, when he looked at her, what had she looked like walking up to him in the library. Was it really what Edward had said? That human, ordinary, Bella walking towards him had looked like softly falling light?

"I was born three hundred years ago in England, I was the son of a priest, and when I was a young man I hunted monsters. I was very good at it, at twenty-three I cornered a dying coven in London. In desperation, as they faced their death at the hands of the vengeful mob, one bit me. Three days later, after the metamorphosis was done, I had been transformed into the very thing I hunted. For a year I attempted to destroy myself, always failing, fleeing from civilization and… One day, in my starvation, I killed a deer. It tasted horrible, but the hunger fled, and I had hope, but the years travelled onwards, and I realized that I was a strange perversion among our kind.

I did not view myself as human, can't, but I respected and wanted to be among them still. The rest separate themselves from humans entirely, view themselves as an elevated form of humanity, to escape the curse of cannibalism."

He folded his hands together, eyes looking down at his own fingernails, gleaming as Edward's had in the light of his kitchen, "Edward was born in 1900, I met him in 1918, during the height of the Spanish influenza in Chicago. I had worked to become a doctor, many times over by then at many different universities, and I was the only doctor in the world immune to any and every virus that existed. His father was dead, his mother dying, himself dying with no means to stop it as so many others were dying…"

He paused then, looked at Bella, taking her hands in his and pleading her to understand. His hands were so cold, and yet he did not even seem to notice Bella's discomfort, lost in his memories, "She had such green eyes, her son had the same eyes, and she looked up at me in her last lucid moments and begged me to save him. Somehow, she knew I could do it, and as she gripped my hand I could not say no. And so, when she died, I turned to Edward, feverish and no longer lucid and I… I changed him. For years he tried, I tried to teach him to see the world as I did, even when he could hear every thought in someone's head. And he was so talented but so very unhappy… Then, one day, he decided that it wasn't enough. That no matter how much I pretended and lied to myself, he was not and never had been my son or brother.

He left, to feed on rapists and murderers, and later he must have slid into unsuspecting and vulnerable young women. He never forgave me and all I can think is that I… I was so lonely, two hundred years I had been so alone in the world, that I had justified the murder of a child. A child who would become a gleeful and vengeful murderer himself to sate a hunger he should never have been burdened with. I didn't allow myself to wonder, to know in 1918 as I stared down at this feverish boy who would never be a man, that he would have rather died."

Carlisle looked away from her, as if he couldn't bear to look at her, stared instead at his stove and quietly said, "I turned no one since, didn't dare, not poor broken Esme who jumped in despair to her death or tortured and raped Rosalie Hale. I… I looked at them, in all their pain and misery, and thought that I could not choose for them as I had chosen for Edward. I shoulder so many burdens already, watching them die helplessly, it is just one more, only one more."

And Bella then realized what it was Edward wanted, what Carlisle feared, and perhaps the point of this strange story, "He's… He's forcing you to turn me into a vampire, isn't he?"

"Or watch him devour you alive," Carlisle said with a nod, a wretched laugh of a sob, turning his eyes upward as if to ask God why it had come to this.

A vampire, Bella had never given them much thought, for obvious reasons horror had never been Bella's genre. Monsters and things that went bump in the night usually sent her running in the other direction. That Carlisle was one of them was… Still, she could believe Edward was, and if she believed that then she could believe Carlisle was as well.

Except looking at him, at Edward, both were so captivating and so beautiful.

"Is it…" Bella paused, licked her lips, and looked at Carlisle, trying to form what she was saying and get to the root of this choice Edward had presented them, "Is it so bad?"

Carlisle looked at her, looked at her as if she had said the most thoughtless and ignorant thing he'd ever heard, and Bella remembered that he had just told her how this very choice had lead Edward Cullen from a boy who had likely been perfectly normal and charming into the monster she had met.

Bella bit her lip and flushed in shame, her fingers freezing in Carlisle's yet not daring to move them away, instead wondering if perhaps with those words she'd just bought her untimely death from Carlisle.

"You wouldn't be the same," Carlisle finally said softly, "You… change, the way you think changes, your memories fade, you become static and time moves past you so easily. You would hunger for human blood for the rest of eternity, be dead to your mother and father, and for all the strengths and talents you might gain you would pay a terrible price for them."

He looked deep into her eyes then, his own fathomless golden pools that Bella wondered how she had ever mistaken for human, "Bella, it is a choice I would never make for someone unless they had no other choice at all."

"And do I," Bella asked, "Have any other choice?"

Carlisle's silence spoke more than enough. Edward had found her apartment with ease, had tracked her to the library, Edward could hear what people thought, and she imagined he might even be lingering outside of Carlisle's apartment right now.

"Not many," Carlisle finally said, then he stood, pulling Bella up from the table with her, some decision having been made in his mind, "Leave your phone, your credit cards as well, and your apartment keys."

Bella opened her mouth, eyes wide, "My phone but…"

"Pick a destination, somewhere you've never been before and no one would think to look for you," Carlisle continued, now moving into his bedroom and out again at a speed that was almost too fast to track with the eye, hastily packing a bag filled with clothing, "Don't tell me where it is, just give me a highway and a direction and I can start driving."

"But, I can't just leave," Bella said, moving forward, trying to stop him even as he zipped up the suitcase, "I have school and what will I tell Charlie or Renee and…"

Carlisle just looked at her, eyes burning and filled with pity and anger, as if waiting for Bella to realize exactly what was happening. Suddenly she did, if Bella stayed here, and the week ended, she'd die or be turned. So, Bella had to disappear, so thoroughly that a mind reading vampire couldn't find her.

Bella Swan, one way or another, was already dead.

When they left the apartment, Bella's phone, her credit cards, all final vestiges of her life were left on the table.

* * *

Carlisle drove fast, far faster than the truck would be able to handle. He'd been driving for days now, barely stopping for when Bella needed food or a restroom or the car needed gasoline, leaving her to sleep in the passenger seat of the car. Soon the forest and rain of western Washington changed into the Cascades then into the plains of the eastern part of the state then into Idaho and Montana.

In the sunlight, as he drove, his skin sparkled like crystal. Light caught in different facets and reflecting off in a rainbow of color, like he was made from diamonds. Quietly, when the sun had first come out as they were driving, he'd explained that this was why he avoided sunlight.

Bella had said nothing, not quite sure what to say to the sight of his skin reflecting light but had thought that it was a strange turn in her life that saw her on the road with a man made of diamonds to perhaps escape his prodigal son.

Bella didn't call Renee and she didn't call Charlie, she wondered if they thought she was dead, her disappearance so soon after the discovery of Jane's body in her apartment. Carlisle said nothing, but undoubtedly, he thought it was for the best. If Bella called them, Edward might visit them first to see where she went or draw her to them, and if he could do it to someone like Jane then she didn't doubt he'd hesitate before murdering Charlie or Renee.

Bella felt cut off from the world, more than she ever had before, as if she and Carlisle in his speeding car were on some sperate plane existence from the rest of humanity. So that even the radio, kept on eclectic stations that wandered between pop, classic rock, and folk music couldn't truly reach them.

Staring out the window of the car, she noted to herself that she'd never seen so much of the country before, even with Renee moving all around the south they had always flown from one state to the next, chasing sunlight.

At one point in the drive, somewhere in Idaho, Carlisle explained what he knew of Edward's gift, "It is possible, sometimes, to block him. It's difficult, but if you think enough of other things, concentrate hard on something without consequence, then he can't see through it. It's exhausting though, and never maintainable in the long term."

Bella nodded, then asked, "Do you know why he can't read my thoughts?"

He looked at her, shook his head, "No, but then, perhaps that's your gift."

Bella shook her head, a rueful smile on her face as she stared out at the empty fields surrounding the highway, "Not much of a gift, is it?"

"Well, it may keep you alive yet," Carlisle said with a shrug and a smile, "And that is nothing to brush aside."

Yes, but where were they going? Bella had picked west, debating between Minnesota or Wisconsin, certainly a place you'd never expect to find Bella Swan but… But she just felt, in strange way, as if they'd be driving forever, driving for the rest of Bella's life. In this car, eating at Wendy's and sleeping in the car, going, and going until there was nowhere to go anymore.

With Edward's deadline was approaching by the minute.

Even though she'd been sitting still for days she felt tired, tired and restless and strangely light headed, as if even now she was dreaming and would wake up and realize that neither Edward nor Carlisle had existed in the first place. However, every time she woke up it was to Carlsile's sparkling skin in the morning sunlight and to the sound of the radio.

His eyes grew darker by the day, with fear and hunger, and Bella knew that in his own way he was just as tired as she was.

"Carlisle," Bella finally asked, "Why are you doing all of this for me?"

Carlisle laughed, blaming himself again, because if he hadn't looked at her, in his mind at least, then none of this would be happening.

"You dropped out of med school for this," Bella reminded him, "Just to drive me across the country."

"I have been to medical school before, I go back every few decades to catch up on research and new techniques. It's easier than you'd think to fake a medical license and new IDs and show up in some small town as a surgeon," Carlisle assured her, and she wondered what it would have been like to have met him instead as a recently graduated student opening a practice in Forks, "I'll be a doctor again, a medical school student again, I'm sure of it."

"Still, I'm… I'm nobody," she hadn't wanted to say it, hadn't wanted Carlisle to come to his senses and realize it, realize that no matter what Edward thought that there was nothing special about Bella. At best she was some freak of nature whose thoughts Edward couldn't read, a fact that somehow didn't surprise her, because she'd always been just a little different than everyone else.

"No, no you are not nobody," Carlisle insisted, taking his eyes off the road to stare at her with a bewildered expression, "Do you know how many people have talked to me in the last century? How many have dared to get close and then get close again? Even after Edward appeared and…"

He trailed off, took a breath, then said, "I have lived for over three hundred years, and yet, I have never met someone like you. Whatever time I have to take away from my human charade, don't ever think that it's not worth it."

And the way he looked at her, Bella knew that he believed it, more his belief was so strong that Bella herself could believe it for a moment. That Bella Swan, human, ordinary, clumsy, and so quiet was worth everything.

She smiled at him, tears gathering at the corner of her eyes, ignoring his look of alarm as she confessed, "There was never anyone like you either, in Forks of Phoenix, and I know it's only been nineteen years on my end but… But I looked, I think, for someone like you. Everyday I'd look through crowds and faces, looking for you. So that even if I was in a library, looking for a place to sit and do homework, I'd notice you right away."

Through her tears, rolling fat, large, and warm down her cheeks she smiled, eyes locked on his figure even through her blurring vision, "So even if we met in the worst circumstances, even if knowing you means driving in a car to nowhere, I am glad I met you."

Then, perhaps it was the idea that death or change or something was around the corner, perhaps it was because Bella had spent so much of her life afraid for no reason at all, but she moved forward so that her face was against his, his skin so cold, and kissed him lightly on the lips.

They were cold, colder than his hands seemed, and there was no movement to them, and yet her whole body seemed to burn with just this light contact, a whisper against his lips.

He stared, stunned, afraid, still driving and not saying a word. But that was alright, because beneath that, she was sure that he was happy. That when this was over, one way or another, he would be glad that he met her too.

And the road, as always, continued to wind before them, drawing them closer and closer to Edward's deadline and to whatever waited after that.

* * *

It was in a gas station restroom on Bella's last day, with flickering fluorescent lights, graffiti on the walls of who had been here and who was here at one in the morning for a good time, with yellowed tap water, that Edward made his reappearance.

Carlisle was filling the car with gas, then buying the hostess products that she'd been living off of for the past few days, while Bella took this moment in the bathroom to regroup herself and try not to notice how limp her hair was, the dark circles beneath her eyes, or how she looked halfway on the way to death already.

Then, Edward's voice, unmistakable and recognizable anywhere, casually singing out an old Frank Sinatra number, " _I've got you under my skin. I have got you deep in the heart of me. So deep in my heart, you're really a part of me, and I've got you under my skin._ "

Bella lifted her head into the stained mirror, that looked as if it hadn't been cleaned in days, and her eyes slowly but surely lifted to see Edward Mason oh so casually leaning against a stall as he looked across at her.

" _I have tried so, not to give in. I've said to myself this affair, it never would go so well. But why should I try to resist when I know so well, that I've got you under my skin?_ "

As he caught her eye, his a more faded burgundy now, he grinned across at her, that boyish handsome grin of his, " _I would sacrifice anything, for the sake of having you near. In spite of a warning voice, that comes in the night and repeats in my ear, 'Don't you know, you fool, you never can win. Use your mentality, wake up to reality.' For each time I do, just the thought of you makes me stop, before I begin. Because I've got you under my skin._ "

Then he was next to her, moving too fast for her to track, faster than Carlisle at times, and fingering her hair he asked, "Do you like Frank Sinatra, Bella? I miss the man, I miss him and Ella Fitzgerald, and am so tired of this modern trash they call music."

He then spared her a dry almost amused and chiding glance, "Oh come now, did you really think you two could outrun me? You took I-405 East, Bella, any half-wit could have caught up with you."

"Does he know you're here?" Bella asked, swallowing, all too aware that this could be her end. Here in a gas station on the freeway in the middle of nowhere.

Edward barked out an amused laugh, "Oh I'm sure he will soon enough, but the wind's not in his favor, and he has been very distracted. But I'm not here to talk to Carlisle yet, I want to talk to you."

He stepped back then, not to a polite distance, still entirely too close, but further away so that he could take all of her in at once, "So, Bella, do you know what the verdict is? Does he watch me guzzle you down like cheap beer or are you to become a blood sucking lady of the night?"

Bella said nothing, eyes hardening, but Edward had clearly gotten better at reading her or else had read Carlisle's mind, "You don't know, do you? You know, Bella, I can tell you the answer, or at least, Carlisle's answer. Would you like to hear it?"

"Not from you," Bella hissed out, only for him to smile, so very politely back at her.

"I think I like that about you, Bella. You're so quiet, yet beneath that you have a courage that even you would not know how to recognize. You're the girl who politely has tea with monsters," he then paused, considered her, then said softly, "You know, if he hadn't come for you, or if you had never met him, I think I may have turned you myself. The world will be a darker place without you in it, Bella Swan."

He sighed then, breathing in the scent of her and the filthy gas station restroom, eyelids fluttering, "It is just too bad that you are… my personal brand of heroin."

Bella blinked, blanched, and couldn't help but ask, "Was that the best you could come up with?"

"Oh, come on, Bella, it took me days to think of that metaphor," Edward said, somewhat affronted, eyes burning before his expression slipped into disinterest once again, "I had to do something to occupy my time chasing you two lovebirds down."

Bella looked at him then, really looked at him, and realized she was looking at whatever was left of Edward Mason. That once, this boy had probably been exactly what he seemed at the surface, a charming, charismatic, thoughtful young man with a playful smile and hair that stuck out in every direction.

Once, he might have been in her high school, played baseball and gone to dances, perhaps Bella's dances.

Then, she suddenly realized, Carlisle had turned him into this. And that was what it boiled down to, for all of them, because there was no guarantee that Bella as she was would survive this and not in turn become another Edward Mason.

It truly was death in every direction.

"You're a monster," Bella said, a small, simple fact, one that she had never said out loud because to say that to Edward would mean in one way or another to say it about Carlisle.

He just grinned.

Then, clapping his hands together, still grinning, he said, "I think I've changed my mind, it's not Carlisle's choice, not really, that's the whole problem. No, it's your choice, your decision between Scylla and Charybdis, to die or to become death, and I think he should have to watch one way or another."

Bella's heart was pounding, she could hear Carlisle running towards them opening the door and shouting, even as Edward looked at her, grinning, and said, "And Bella, you have about two seconds before I choose for you."

(Maybe, Bella thought to herself as she spared one last, horrified, look towards Carlisle with her mouth open, her number had always been up.)

* * *

 **Author's Note: And that's a wrap, with Edward stealing the show enough to show up more than I'd planned to in the original formative planning of the story.**

 **Thanks for reading and reviewing, reviews are much appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight**


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